October 2016

Saturday, September 15, 2012

Obama is “among the most sophisticated consumers of intelligence on the planet”

That's the message being put out by administration officials explaining away Obama's lack of interest in daily intelligence briefs. In other words, Obama's intellect removes the necessity for face to face meetings with the intelligence community.

When I asked National Security Council spokesman Tommy Vietor if the president had attended any
meetings to discuss the Presidential Daily Brief (PDB) since Sept. 5, he repeatedly refused to answer. He noted that Obama had attended a principals meeting of the National Security Council on Sept. 10 and reiterated that he reads the PDB. “As I’ve told you every time you ask, the President gets his PDB every day,” Vietor told me by e-mail, adding this swipe at Obama’s predecessor, George W. Bush: “Unlike your former boss, he has it delivered to his residence in the morning and not briefed to him.” (This new line of defense was echoed this morning by my Post colleague, Dana Milbank, who writes thatBush was briefed every day by his intelligence advisers because he “decided he would prefer to read less.”)

Vietor’s reply is quite revealing. It is apparently a point of pride in the White House that Obama’s PDB is “not briefed to him.” In the eyes of this administration, it is a virtue that the president does not meet every day with senior intelligence officials. This president, you see, does not needbriefers. He can forgo his daily intelligence meeting because he is, in Vietor’s words, “among the most sophisticated consumers of intelligence on the planet.”

Truly sophisticated consumers of intelligence don’t see it as a sign of weakness to “be briefed” by the experts. Most of us, if we subscribed to a daily report on, say, astrophysics, would probably need some help interpreting it. But when it comes to intelligence, Obama is apparently so brilliant he can absorb the most complicated topics by himself in his study. He does not need to sit down for up to an hour a day with top intelligence officials, or hold more than 100 “deep dives” in which he invites CIA analysts into the Oval Office and gives them direct access to the commander in chief to discuss their areas of expertise. Such meetings are crutches this president does not need. Written briefings, questions and comments are enough. Obama has more important things to do — such as attend Las Vegas fundraisers.

Comments

No doubt Obama can put the printout of the intelligence briefing under his pillow and sleep on it, thereby allowing its contents to seep into his brain through an osmotic process only he, in his superior state, can achieve. He's THAT brilliant.

Or maybe he just doesn't give a damn about the daily intelligence briefs.